pbahra writes: "Google Inc. said Friday that it has purchased technology patents from International Business Machines Corp. as the Web-search giant stocks up on intellectual property to defend itself against lawsuits. "Like many tech companies, at times we'll acquire patents that are relevant to our business," a Google spokesman said in a statement.The purchase was reported earlier by the blog SEO by the Sea, which said Google in mid-July recorded the acquisition of more than 1,000 patents with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. The patents involve the "fabrication and architecture of memory and microprocessing chips," computer architecture including servers and routers and online search engines, among other things. SEO stands for search engine optimization, or the practice of structuring websites and content so they rank well on search engines like Google. The Google spokesman declined to comment on the purchase price. It wasn't immediately clear which of the patents might be useful to Google to shield against lawsuits. Google faces patent lawsuits for many of its services, including its Android mobile-device operating system, which has become a bigger target as its world-wide popularity has risen. It is unclear whether any current lawsuits pose a threat to future revenue generated by Google's new technologies."Link to Original Source